


Hope

by LadyLoec



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas, MAAS Sarah J. - Works
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, POV Rhysand (ACoTaR), Porn With Plot, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 12:13:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16040255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLoec/pseuds/LadyLoec
Summary: Feyre's inability to shield has meant Rhysand has been subjected to some things he'd rather not see. But this time, something is different.Or: Feyre is having sex with Tamlin and starts to daydream about a certain High Lord of Night.





	Hope

I cringed as I felt a familiar flutter down the bond. I had returned Feyre to the Spring Court that morning, which was... Well, while she would always be free to make her own choices as far as I was concerned, it didn't make handing her back to him any easier. Her shields seemed to have held beautifully throughout the day and I was immensely proud of how much she had accomplished with so little training and practice. But most importantly, I was looking forward to a reprieve from what happened after the lights went out.

 

If you had asked me three months ago what the very worst thing in the world was, I would have told you it was realising after fifty years of being used and violated that you were mated to someone who hated you with the fury of a thousand suns. But I was wrong. Oh so wrong: No, the very worst thing in the world was feeling your mate in the throes of passion with your worst enemy.

 

The first time it had happened, I was back in Velaris with my family - my inner circle. After an incredibly emotional reunion (Amren had been sickened by the display of raw emotion from Cassian, who was rendered a blubbering mess by my return - even Az had shed a tear) and a much needed meal, we had retired to the lounge at the House of Wind to drink and talk. Well, they talked; it would be a while before I could open up about any of what had happened to me under the mountain. I had missed their voices, and just bathed myself in the warmth and familiarity of their company. It had started with an odd flutter in my stomach, ghostly touches on my skin, shallow phantom breaths in my lungs, and heat - a liquid warmth pooling in my abdomen. I thought at first I might be taking ill; it took me a while to recognise what was happening. Cauldron bless Morrigan, who was the only person I had confided in since my return: She recognised something was amiss and sent the others home as I excused myself to my room. She didn't know what was happening of course: Thought it might be some kind of post-traumatic reaction, or overstimulation after so many years in solitude. But her instincts saved me a great deal of embarrassment and pity.

 

Once I did realise what was happening, I couldn't fight the bile rising in my throat. As her heartbeat sped, Feyre's unshielded mind graduated from conveying odd fragments, to shouting everything straight down our bond: Pulses of pure sensation in time with her heartbeat. Even across the huge distance between us, I got every touch, sight, sound, and smell. After half a century of being violated in the most horrific ways, it was unbearable that I couldn't shut it out. And worse, my own trauma mingled with the territoriality of a nascent mating bond almost broke apart my sanity; my body and mind warred between shutting down in shock, surrendering to a pleasure that sickened me, or tearing through the fabric of reality like molten thunder to rip Tamlin to shreds. I collapsed to the ground (smashing a vase older than some mortal territories) and thrashed, Mor trying desperately to stop me from clawing at my skin, my eyes, my ears. I could feel her sweat mingling with his on my own skin. I vomited and screamed and tried to mar my own flesh until it was over and I was left hoarse and weeping like a child in my cousin's arms. She didn't ask why, and I didn't tell her.

 

The next time, I knew what was happening to me, which didn't make it any less awful, but at least meant I had some semblance of self control. It still left me hugging porcelain and wishing my power was capable of obliterating my own mind, but at least I was ready for it. Over the next couple of months, I got somewhat used to the violations of my mind - prepared for them by drinking far too much and reminding myself that at least she was happy.

 

And then she wasn't.

 

Whisking her away from her wedding day, I wondered how much I was really saving her from a marriage she didn't want and how much I was just selfishly saving myself from her wedding night. The little time I spent with her though... I never wanted it to end, but that was the deal. I taught her to shield, hoping to save myself the return to the nightly passions of my mate and my rival, and begrudgingly returned her to him.

 

That was this morning, but now it seemed my hopes were dashed - her shields weren't capable of holding while she was 'distracted'. I poured myself a generous slug of brandy and drank it down in one, immediately replacing it with another. I felt a wave of her lust as he nipped at her throat and felt the glass shatter in my hand (whether it was my magic or my strength that slipped the leash, I wasn't sure). I swore and grabbed a new tumbler, filling it again - not the first casualty of a night like this. I settled in for another uncomfortable evening. I thought for one horrible moment that I'd rather spend another night under Amarantha than have to experience the female I loved being brought to bliss again by the man who murdered my family, but what could I do? So I gritted my teeth to ride it out. 

 

After ten minutes of massaging my temples and battling the nausea, it occurred to me that this felt different somehow. I always did my best to distract myself from the... details... but something was definitely off. Nothing was (ugh) physically different, but Feyre just wasn't into it. I could sense her mind wandering, hear her at first wishing the touch was a little less rough, lighter, less bestial, to the right, and so on. Her attention eventually drifted completely to wondering whether to order replacement drapes for her bedroom. Tamlin, inconsiderate whelp, didn't seem to notice at all that his lover wasn't present: She wasn't even bothering to feign interest and he still didn't notice (as if I needed more of a reason to hate the prick). Still, on a selfish level, this was far less uncomfortable for me. In fact, it was becoming quite amusing: Watching him fail so completely to satisfy her needs gave me an immature sense of triumph. 

 

As she tried to picture the windows framed in a damask fabric, her eyes were drawn to the night sky and the twinkling stars beyond the panes. She shifted slightly, pushing Tamlin away as he tried to kiss her lips and maneuvering him into the crook of her neck (less out of any desire for his attentions there and more to get him out of her line of sight). Then the unthinkable happened. 

_Rhys_

It wasn't more than a bare whisper of thought, but it was definitely there, and it _definitely_ got my attention. Fuck, did she know I was listening? (Well, not that I had any control over what she was broadcasting, but still). No, she didn't seem to have any idea I could hear her. Then why... 

The window. 

The night sky. 

She was thinking about me. 

Feyre's breath hitched and she was pulled out of her little interlude, at least a little, by the feeling of too-rough kisses along her stomach, heading south. I took another breath in to fight the wave of simultaneous nausea and simmering rage as I waited for the assault on my senses, counting backwards in my head to distract myself. 

 

As daemati, one of the first things you learn when mastering your power is that the line between fantasy and reality isn't nearly as defined as people think it is. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise really: Everyone has had at least one dream that have felt so real that they have had to take a moment on waking to reassert fact from fiction. Taking advantage of those blurred lines, making it feel real, has been the bread and butter of my skill set for centuries. Waking dreams, however - the fantasies we _craft_ for ourselves in moments of boredom or to keep us warm at night - those are as real as you make them. Feyre, it seems, was a natural master of the art. 

 

It started with little things. Tamlin's calloused broad hands and became smoother and more elegant, fingers more tapered. The touches softened in her mind - still insistent, but more controlled, less abrasive. Those alterations barely registered as I tried to distract myself. 

 

What instantly drew my full attention was when she glanced down, and instead of being crowned with shining blonde locks, the head between her legs was a short mop of inky blue-black tresses. It would have been an exact replica of my own raven hair, if not for the distinctly tousled look hair gets when it has been messed up in bed. Feyre's artistic attention to detail was evidently spot on. The look of absolute shock on my real face was definitely not as attractive as the smirk on the lips of her fantasy creation, violet eyes sparkling with mischief from between her thighs as they looked up to meet hers. Whatever her real-life partner was or wasn't doing, she didn't notice: Dear old Tamlin could have been dancing a festive jig and she wouldn't have broken her gaze from those eyes.

My eyes.

 

That threw me. I knew she had once found me attractive; it had been her first thought the night we met, after all. But I never let myself believe that after everything I had done to her, all my apparent cruelties, she still might (despite her appalling lack of shielding, thoughts I gleaned from her about me tended towards the 'prick' end of the spectrum). Beauty tends to fade when seen in the context of malice. Amarantha was evidence of that: She was objectively attractive, but the sight of her turned my stomach. Apparently not the case for Feyre, not if the warming in her blood at the sight she had conjured was any indication, the strangled gasp as he licked a stripe up the centre of her and she silently pleaded for more. 

 

"Careful Feyre, darling, you'll make me blush." (It's singularly bizarre hearing your own voice through the ears of another. It was almost a purr. Did I really sound like that?) The figment wearing my face interspersed his speech with kisses, licks, and gentle nips along her thigh, heading slowly towards the heady aroma of her sex. I envied him. "I know you've been dying to know exactly what this wicked tongue can do ever since it licked your tears away." (Had she, now?) The gentlest tease of it against her apex, a maddening lack of pressure. "I know you've spent the past week dreading that I would come to your rooms, but hating every morning when you woke up and I hadn't." (Oh, that's _very_ interesting...) There was another pause as her daydream teased at her with too-soft kisses and licks of her folds, an infuriating inch or two from where would set her on fire, but building a perfect anticipation. I could sense that her actual partner was going for the more brute-force-and-ignorance approach. Typical. 

 

It was then I noticed that she had given her figment wings - not as perfect a likeness as the rest, given she had seen them on me only once or twice, but a close rendition with some artistic license. Intriguing that she chose to include them. Apparently she either recognised how fundamental they were to my being, or she liked them, both of which were heartening revelations. "And I know you've been wondering what kind of skill set kept Amarantha so satisfied for 50 years that she never took another male to bed." The fantasy teased two fingers at her entrance, never venturing more than a knuckle's depth into her heat and it had her keening. Gods, that sound had been tormenting me for weeks, but now it was at more familiar hands it was a thing of beauty. "Let me tell you a secret Feyre, darling." The figment's fingers dipped languidly inside her in one swift stroke and curled against her sweet spot in a way that made her eyes roll back and her hips buck. "You'd be kicking yourself for not taking the deal at two weeks a month." Not-quite-me unleashed himself on her then, fingers twisting inside her as his mouth closed around her clit, humming an appreciation for her taste as his tongue swirled and she broke hard under the imagined ministrations. 

 

Mother above. 

It was difficult to process the huge amount I had learned in the past few minutes (in part because the blood used to power my faculties was busy elsewhere. Once I was sure I wasn't going to get any further, unwanted flashes, that would need taking care of). However there were definitely some important things to take away. 

Firstly, she doesn't hate me. At least, not as much as I thought. 

Secondly, her feelings for Tamlin's were changing: It wasn't just nerves and stress that stopped her wanting to go through with the wedding. This changes everything - I left them be because I was determined for her to be happy, but if she isn't, where does that leave us? Which brings me onto the third thing. 

Thirdly, she lusts for me. _Badly_ , if that was anything to go by - maybe even as much as I want her. It could just be the biological component of the mating bond, but it's a start. 

 

An echoed conversation at the end of the bond reminds me that this might not be over yet, but it sounds as if she's putting him off. 

"I'm sorry, Tam, it's just been a long week and I..."

"You don't have to make excuses, Feyre. I can't imagine what you must have gone through." He kissed her head - a little abruptly, probably frustrated at his own lack of release - and headed for the door. "See you in the morning." 

She smiled at him as he doused the light. In the corner out of his sight, Feyre's illusion of me leaned against the wall and smirked, glinting eyes visible in the gloom until the last vestiges of light left and forgotten shields rose up. 

 

Hope. There was hope. 


End file.
